


caught in your orbit

by arachnistar



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9932717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: When Amy gets sick on New Year's Eve, Jake stays home to take care of her. Resolutions are made.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff I wrote while taking a break from the longer fic I’m working on.

Amy never gets sick. At least not since she was a kid and faked being healthy to go to school because she wasn’t missing class for a mere _cold_. It turned out to be the flu and she got half the class infected, which is a fact that still makes Jake laugh every time.

For all her pride in her health, she winds up sick on New Year’s Eve of all days. Jake spends most of the day hovering and fetching whatever she needs. She spends most of the day in bed sleeping or hacking up her insides.

In the evening, while Jake searches through the kitchen cabinets for culinary inspiration, her voice, small and hoarse, calls out, “Jake?”

He pokes his head out, sees Amy at the head of the hallway from their bedroom, and smiles, an automatic response to her presence. “I’m here. Do you need anything?”

“No… I still don’t feel good.” Jake’s eyes dart across her. Her tangled hair hangs around her face, her skin is still too clammy and wan, and her eyes squint at him. She’s clutching the blankets tightly around her body and they’re dragging a bit on the floor where she hasn’t quite hitched them high enough, which she hates. That she doesn’t notice is testament to her condition. “But you should still go out.”

“And leave you here to suffer alone? No way.” Jake steps out from the kitchen and walks to her. His arm wraps around her blanketed body, turning them both around. “Get back in bed and I’ll bring you some soup.”

Amy sniffles and then scowls at herself. If she wasn’t suffering, Jake would find the gesture adorable; he still does, if he’s being honest. “It’s New Year’s.”

He starts walking her back to their bedroom. “And?”

“The squad’s having a party at Terry’s.”

“I’m not going without you and you’re not leaving this apartment until you’re better. So looks like we’re both stuck here.”

Jake helps her into the bed. Once she’s lying down, he tucks the blankets back around her and pulls the comforter up. His heart pangs at the sight of her bundled up and miserable.

“I won’t be very good company.”  

“You’re always good company.” He kisses her forehead, letting his lips linger for a moment. She’s still too warm. Not enough to take her to the hospital, he thinks, but still enough for him to be concerned and reluctant to leave her alone. He swallows the concern, she’ll be okay, he just needs to be there for her and find a way to cheer her up some, to give her an impish smile. “Even when you snore.”

The change is immediate, her frown turning into a scowl and her eyes narrowing slightly in challenge. “I don’t snore.”

He winks at her. “I’ll be back with some soup.”

“I don’t snore, Jake!”

“Yes, you do!” He calls over his shoulder, laughing when she complains again. She doesn’t, not really. Sometimes she snuffles in her sleep, little soft sounds that are on his top ten list of sounds, and sometimes her breathing gets noisy, but she doesn’t snore.  

He makes her chicken noodle soup, the way Nana used to when he was sick and his mom couldn’t take time off to take care of him, and brings it in. He stays while she eats, on the bed by her side, regaling her with stories about his childhood sick days, also known as an excuse to miss school, watch cartoons, and drink orange soda all day, smiling when she laughs in all the right places.

His only moment of true concern comes when her laughing morphs into a hacking cough. She waves off his fluttering hands. “I’m fine, Jake, really. It’s just a cough.”

“Just a cough, I know that.” He repeats, hands falling by his side. He reminds himself that he’s coughed that hard before and that it just sounds worse coming from Amy because anything bad seems a thousand times worse when it happens to her.

She takes one of his hands and squeezes it. “I’ve been worse.”

Once she finishes the soup, he places the bowl on the nightstand and stays, holding her hand, until she falls asleep. He waits a while. Her sleep is peaceful, face smooth and breathing only slightly congested. She really is okay. He sighs.

Eventually his hand goes numb and so he eases it out of Amy’s grip. She doesn’t respond to the sudden loss except to wriggle her fingers, grasping at nothing. He lifts her hand, gives it a quick kiss, and tucks her arm in underneath the blankets.

Then he takes the empty soul bowl to the kitchen, finishes up the dishes because he knows Amy hates it when dishes sit overnight, and flops down on the couch. He watches Die Hard, keeping the volume low so as not to disturb Amy, and then switches the channel to the New Year’s celebrations down at Times Square.

He thinks of the squad at Terry’s house with their families, food and bright lights and raucous laughter, and of Amy lying in their bed, sleeping off a bad cold, and of how he’s sitting here alone at the end of the old year. He could join her, curl up by her sleeping form, watch the last minutes tick by on his phone. It’s not exactly fireworks and champagne, he’ll have to stay quiet so he doesn’t accidentally wake her, but he wouldn’t be alone.    

There are about ten minutes left before midnight when he stands and turns. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Amy standing there, still in her pajamas but with only one blanket wrapped around her shoulders this time.  

“Hey.”

There’s a bit more color in her cheeks and her eyes are wide open and the blanket is carefully pulled up so it doesn’t drag along the floor.   

“How are you feeling, Ames?”

“Better.” She shuffles over to drop down on the couch. He helps tuck her blanket more firmly around her and then grabs a quilt, a hideously bright and patterned blanket that Nana made for him and that he adores, to throw over both of them. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Aww.” He smiles at her. “I was just about to join you.”

She smiles back before snuggling closer against his side, knees knocking into his legs. Her head rests against his chest and she’s so warm by his side, instantly filling all the gaps within him. She watches the TV for a few minutes and he watches her, a fuzzy warmth settling in his chest, something peaceful and content like this moment, this feeling here, is the reason why humanity continues year after year in the face of an uncaring cosmos.

“What are your New Year’s resolutions?” Amy asks without looking away from the festivities on-screen. 

“I don’t have any.”

Amy sits back and stares, mouth agape. Before Jake can whine about the sudden loss of warmth by his side, she says, “What? How can you not have any resolutions?”

Jake shrugs. “Never saw the point. People always break them in the first week.”

“I don’t.”

His chest glows at the sight of her fierce eyes and set lips, it’s the same look she gets when a perp refuses to talk but it’s about resolutions of all things, and his heart does a silly tap dance. “What’s yours then?”

“I have a list.” She sniffs and it’s a little louder than it should be because of her congestion and he can’t help but laugh.

“I promise I’m not laughing about the resolutions.” He says when he’s settled and she’s giving him a hard stare. It softens at his fond tone. “A list of resolutions, it’s very you. Let’s hear it.”

“Okay. Stop being weird around Captain Holt.” Jake snorts, because when she needs to be she is calm and levelheaded with Holt, it’s just when she’s directly trying for his approval that she acts like a weirdo, and she nudges him. “Learn Mandarin. Cook a successful meal at least once a week. Get a higher arrest number than this past year.”

Jake stares at her while she talks, just as enchanted by her now as when she’s wearing a beautiful dress. Warmth and affection bubble in his chest until he feels stretched with the sensation, a whole universe of love swirling in his heart, and he has to smile. She’s so radiant and so passionate, outshining the sun and all the stars in the sky, even when sick, even when discussing resolutions. He wants to spend the rest of his life in her orbit, spinning and basking in her glow. He wants to marry her.

The epiphany doesn’t strike like lightning, a sudden, brilliant flash like so many of his other inspirations and whimsies. Instead it bubbles forth from all that vast feeling in his chest, like something that’s always been present and is only now being uncovered. It’s almost too much to contain; he wants to drop down on one knee and shout his love for Amy to the stars, for all to hear and rejoice alongside him right now. He resists – just barely – but he can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face.

Amy finishes speaking and he waits, staring for maybe a beat too long because she’s starting to frown, before blurting out, “I just thought of mine.”

Amy sits up straighter. “Okay! What is it?”

“Uhh…” He hadn’t meant to speak and he can’t propose to her here, without a ring or a speech or anything else prepared. Shit. He mentally back-pedals and curses his lack of brain-mouth filter. She deserves better. A beautiful proposal that he will meticulously plan to be perfect in every way. His eyes skate across the room and land on the orange soda can he fully intends to toss away. “I’m going to stop drinking orange soda.”

Amy stares at him, brow lifting. “Jake.” He looks back at her with the same serious expression, composing his face so he isn’t grinning like a fool. “Seriously?” He doesn’t break face and after a pause, she bursts out laughing. “You’ll never keep to that.”

“Yeah.” Jake replies, calming now that his plan is safe. And then he remembers that he’s going to ask her to marry him, not now but _soon_ , in the coming months once he finishes planning, which is a whole new kind of panic. A giddy, exciting, terrifying panic that bubbles in his stomach like the soda he lied about deciding to quit. He’s going to _propose_ to her. “It’ll be broken tomorrow morning over breakfast.”

“Oh my God.” She laughs and then returns to cuddling against him. “You’re the worst at resolutions.”

“I am.” He says proudly. She doesn’t suspect his actual resolution and he’s going to get down on one knee in the next couple months and ask her to marry him in the world’s most romantic proposal. _Take that, Amy! Who’s bad at resolutions now!_

His heart swells at the thought of marriage and he is a little scared that she’ll say no, that it’s too early or it’s not what she wants, but mostly he just feels so happy and full in this moment, buoyed by his revelation and his resolution. He smiles, a big and wide smile that stretches across his face. 

“What are you smiling at?”

“You.”

“Weirdo.” Her voice is fond though and she nuzzles against him after.

The countdown for the last few seconds of the year starts on TV, the crowd chanting along. Jake turns to Amy and shifts her so they’re facing each other. “I’m going to kiss you.”

“You’ll get sick.”

“I don’t care.”

When the countdown strikes zero and the TV explodes with cheers, Jake leans in and kisses Amy. Her lips are warmer than usual, he’ll be concerned about her lingering fever in a moment, but it’s Amy and he’s going to ask her to marry him and his stomach dips like this is the first time. Outside fireworks explode in the skies over New York City and inside his heart explodes with its own type of celebration.

\--

The next morning, he wakes up with a fever and a congested nose. He regrets nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://proofthatihaveaheart.tumblr.com/).


End file.
